Missing someone, they say, is self-centered. I self-center you more than ever. (Saša Stanišić)

The cool air rubbed roughly over me as I lay on the beach. My arms and legs were sprawled out like I had fallen from the cliff above. I felt like I had. What was I going to do now?

God, I know what I'm supposed to do. I do. I love you, God, and I want you to believe that you made the right choice when you brought Christian and me together. I want you to know that I appreciate that more than anything. I am eternally grateful. But God, I wonder if maybe it wasn't the right choice. 

Maybe there is a girl out there, a girl like Lilia, who is right for Christian. Maybe there's a girl who never ran a stop sign or stole a chocolate bar or killed a man. Maybe there's a girl out there who would make his life so much better than I do. 

He brings out the best in me but there is so little good in me to be brought out. I'm bad. It's in my blood. It's in my genes. I don't think my dilemma is whether or not I'm going to get involved in this deal, I think the dilemma is whether or not I can stay with Christian. He deserves better than me. I don't mean that in a self-deprecating way, I think I'm awesome. I just think, for once in my life, I might need to put my own wants aside and pray a real prayer: Lord, give me the strength to put Christian's needs over my own.

That was that. Christian would be a free man and I would be back in business. I missed myself. I missed the girl who was high and ambitious. I was going soft in here and with him. I scared myself sometimes when I was with Christian because I could just see my identity dissolving into his. I was losing myself to this man and at his essence that was all he was: a man.